The present invention pertains to a vehicle accessory and particularly to an accessory which includes a trainable transmitter for remotely controlling devices such as a garage door opening mechanism.
Electrically operated garage door openers are a popular vehicle and home accessory. Their operation typically requires the use of a remote transmitter which is battery powered and carried in the homeowner's vehicle for transmitting radio frequency signals which are received by a garage door opener receiver for controlling the garage door opening mechanism attached to the garage door. In the prior art, the garage door transmitters have consisted of an enclosure with a battery which must be periodically replaced. The unit is portable and vehicle owners typically either clip them to the vehicle visor or in some cases they are removably mounted to the dashboard.
There exists several inconveniences with such prior art units, the first being that with the portable unit it is typically necessary to physically reach for and move the unit from a storage location into an optimum position for operation of the garage door. This optimum position is usually in the windshield area. Thus, if the portable unit is mounted on the dash board, it must be removed and directed toward the garage door for operation. If it is mounted on the visor, it can become a safety hazard in the form of a relatively hard projection at the head level in the vehicle. Further, it obstructs motion of the visor, which when moved, sometimes knocks the transmitter from the visor. Thus, such an arrangement interferes with visor use and poses a safety threat.
Further, there has been a recent increase in the theft of portable garage door opening transmitters, even, for example, at car wash facilities where the car is unattended by the owner. The thief has access to the interiors of the vehicle and can copy the home address from the registration and remove the garage door opening transmitter which will not be missed until a later time. This provides access to the owner's garage which may be locked and frequently the home which is thought to be secure by the locking of the garage. Thus, the common portable garage door opening transmitter which typically is provided with the garage door opener suffers from many problems including as well that they frequently are unsightly and do not match the vehicle's interior decor.
One successful method of solving some of the problems and providing a convenient location for the remote control in the vehicle involves mounting the existing remote control in a vehicle storage compartment such as taught by U.S. Pat. No. 4,595,228. This however does not prevent the theft problem. U.S. Pat. No. 4,447,808 entitled REARVIEW MIRROR TRANSMITTER ASSEMBLY issued to Marcus on May 8, 1984, teaches the mounting of a garage door opening transmitter in a rearview mirror assembly. U.S. Pat. No. 4,241,870 entitled REMOTE TRANSMITTER IN HOUSING issued to Marcus on Dec. 30, 1980, teaches the mounting of such a transmitter in a console on a vehicle headliner. U.S. Pat. No. 4,427,850 entitled VISOR AND GARAGE DOOR OPERATOR ASSEMBLY issued to Marcus on Jan. 27, 1981, teaches the mounting of a garage door opening transmitter in a visor. Although the systems described in the latter three patents disclose convenient locations for integrally mounting a remote control transmitter in a vehicle, both require a new homeowner receiver or electrical modification of the receiver to interface with the vehicle installed transmitter such that the same frequency and coding is employed.